Will Lower MEN Sales Cause No More Bids?

How can they regain lost markets in this economic climate even if we could trust this soon to be extinct liar's numbers. Especially when trying to dump assets. Who will there be left to sue when they are gone and business is not as they presented.

$300M -30% = $200M
$200M-30%= $140M
$140M=30% = under $100M

..so who thinks they can stop this erosion or capitalize on what's left?
Brainless buying.. brainless bagholding...

How Alcatel-Lucent's $300M UMTS purchase is coming along?
What is it worth today?

It's not that bad. I work for MEN and I can tell that there is some neat technology in MEN. However, business wise it's not a huge contributor at the moment, but a good acquirer can make good returns on it in the medium and long term. Also, Nortel never explored the services angle of MEN, which NSN may be able to turn in their favor. There is more money to be made in services than in equipment business. Also, I think lot of folks have really woken up now and realize that real competence is needed much more than ever before.

er! ok that sums up what a dud this must be.

neat tech with no returns.
did not explore services or other ways to make money.
folks have woken up realizing competence is needed.

is it ignorance or arrogance or both? would hope this does not move to the new company.

Friend007 is not correct about the sale of services. MEN has been selling services for years. They certainly could sell more of them.

I'm not talking about the services that come with the product. Offcourse there are always some services. There is much more to services than what's there today. Does NT design, build, integrate, and manage networks for its customers. Does NT/MEN has a contract like Ericsson's contract with Sprint? No. MEN has big installed base and customer relationships that could have been leveraged properly.

The rest of Nortel has been doing that for years. If MEN is not, you have a point. They appear to be years behind the rest of the company.

Really! I only know of enterprise VoIP and some other enterprise stuff.

I thought you said Nortel didn't provide services?? Also, your Carrier business has been providing end-to-end services for at least a decade now, probably much longer. Maybe you MEN guys should have been talking to them? Too late now I guess. :)

Friday, October 30, 2009

PARIS — Telecommunications gear maker Alcatel-Lucent on Friday posted its twelfth straight quarterly net loss, hit hard by telecoms operators' sharp cutbacks in network investments.

The French-American group posted an adjusted operating loss of €11-million ($16.2-million U.S.) on revenues of €3.687-billion in the three months to Sept. 30, compared with expectations of €14.4-million and €3.895-billion respectively, based on a Reuters poll.

Chief executive Ben Verwaayen said the market environment “remained challenging” and confirmed his forecast that the addressable market for telecoms gear would drop by 8 to 12 per cent this year.

Mr. Verwaayen said the group had already realized 80 per cent of the €750-million in cost cuts it was aiming for this year.

Alcatel-Lucent's rival Ericsson reported lower-than-expected earnings last week, citing tough pricing conditions and slower spending by customers in emerging markets.

Telecom operators like Telefonica and France Telecom are cutting capital expenditure this year as their customers feel the pinch of the recession.

Mr. Tufano said the firm was also working on divesting non-core assets.

“One of those negotiations is in the late stages and we hope to have something to announce on that by the end of the quarter,” Mr. Tufano said.

Alcatel-Lucent's shares have climbed 86 per cent this year as some investors bet that it has turned a corner in its restructuring and will benefit from an eventual economic recovery.

______________________________________

up 86% as the company tanks!?
shows the degree of unjustified gamble on steroids by these desperate companies amid dire markets...

What if yet another fairly awesome big telecom files Ch 11?

Should I start looking for an AOL dialup floppy disc at Walmart?

the way they are going looks like it. Lucent dragged them down ever since the two merged. Otherwise Alcatel was a pretty class act. They have also been on a hiring spree so not sure why or what for.

Agree ... NSN has to win GSM for AT&T, TMO and the IESPs. NSN experienced a C-level shakeup for losing the CDMA bid because Sue Spradley's boss wasn't answering his phone to one-up the E/// final bid. Let's hope NSN is more prepared on Friday!

One Equity Partners who buys for J.P Morgan has deep pockets with with assets of $2 trillion.

Ciena is in based on their stalking horse bid.

Cieana are in the bidding.
When I said they are out I meant to say they will lose out.
You can count on that.

The 2nd bidder is a combination of Nokia Siemens Networks and private equity firm One Equity Partners.

http://www.reuters.com/article/innovationNews/idUSTRE5AH5IN20091118

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Nokia Siemens Networks and private equity firm One Equity Partners have jointly bid for Nortel Networks Corp's optical networking and carrier ethernet business, a person familiar with the sale said on Wednesday.
Last month, the bankrupt Canadian telecommunications equipment maker said that Ciena Corp's (CIEN.O) cash-and-stock bid would be the stalking horse offer for these assets.

The Ciena offer of $390 million in cash and 10 million in Ciena shares set a floor price for these assets and allowed Nortel to seek competing offers.

Offers for the assets were due Nov 17. Nortel said on Wednesday the final auction will be held on Nov 20.

One Equity Partners manages $8 billion for JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) in private equity investments.

Representatives for Ciena and JPMorgan were not immediately available. A spokesman for Nortel declined to comment.

There could be more at the trough last minute but you'd think they would have announced unless they are not obligated to do so?
"It is unclear if another bidder also put in an offer to rival the one by Nokia Siemens and One Equity, which manages $8 billion for JPMorgan (JPM.N) in private equity investments"
Looks like Ciena are out.

CVAS did well but they are small with not alot of potential upside for increase.
The fact they had positive increase means corporate nortel will likely keep them
around till they start losing revenue QoQ or YoY and then sell them.
Haven't they done that with all the LOB's they've sold so far.

Optical auction is NOV 20

http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/Nortel-OTC-Bulletin-Board-NRTLQ-1078974.html

So they announced the auction date of Nov 20 and as of yet there still has only been one bidder confirmed. What a crock.

will the stock component be allowed by creditors? when did they start accepting stock deals instead of all cash esp if ciena tanks.

What about the GSM auction Friday ... thoughts?

probably hitachi. dont see anyone. gsm is not too exciting now. it is not popular in north america (cdma) so Alcatel, Nokia and E/// already have their share of gsm. why would they buy a redundant business.

Haha! Nortel means savings. First, pair up and sync your new-bought and existing GSM switches, then simply turn off redundancy on the Nortel stuff and you save, as promised, 25% juice! Then do the same to your old junk and you save another 25%. That equals a total savings of 50%, according to ancient Nortel Math.

You now have 100% redundant, synergized switches each running at 50% less electricity than before, with room for expansion.. Read it and weep again, Cisco.

well... GSM... if NSN wants a wireless North American footprint, perhaps it picks up GSM to get the AT&T and TMO US accounts. If NSN is in play, then E/// might come in to prevent that from happening. That's another plausible scenario IMHO. In any event, 2 auctions starting in 1 day will make for an entertaining weekend...

It seems that Mark's articles on this site keep going on some assumption that the deadline isn't already over. It is confusing.

The deadline that has passed is for registering as a qualified (i.e. financially solvent) bidder. Except for the stalking horse bid, long since published, the actual bids are not made until the day of the auction - on a date they have not yet announced, since the qualifying deadline slipped.

So the intervening Q3 results could mean that qualified buyers either decide not to bid after all or decide to bid less than they were planning to, meaning that even though the floor has been set with the stalking horse bid, the ceiling may prove to be much lower than it might have been if all this had been concluded earlier...

At least that's how I understand it!

so if NSN offers 200 million and 400 million in stock will it be approved. if stock is accepted then its a message that there is not a lot of money floating around and secondly that these companies are in trouble themselves.

The bids were all due on Tuesday and the bidding deadline is now past. I am guessing the auction late this week or early next week.

I wonder if CIEN regrets putting their stalking horse bid yet. I stress yet with this rate of quarterly decline.

Interesting to see how troubled companies are vying to buy this bankrupt laggard with no credibility during hard times.

Avaya isn't doing well at all and neither is Ericsson booming. I suspect they'd do much better to avoid the brainless blue light specials Nortel hypes. Even the BS PR seems to be contagious.

None are doing well and Nortel already tried buying losing earnings revenues.
When will they ever learn.

Hmmm, do I short Ciena?

Only if they win the bid =)

it is actually 240 million or so since some products were canned or removed. but still the Ciena price is 50% of sales. dont think there is going to be much interest now.

I thought the deadline for bids on MEN was yesterday?

Yes, that is correct.

this article:
http://ca.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idCATRE5AC44020091113

it specifically states : "Qualified bidders now have until November 17 to submit offers for the assets. "

it is a legal thing where they could delay up to 5 days from the original close of the bidding which was last Monday.